Excursus: The Logos Doctrine
Excursus
The Logos Doctrine
My purpose in this initial examination is to show how the religious phraseology, and to some extent, the religious thought, of the time had prepared the way for the promulgation of the Gospel.
The expression ὁ Λόγος is unintelligible in itself. It evidently had a pre-history. The Apostles used old terms to enunciate new truths. This was a necessity of their position. Λόγος (λέγω) refers to speech, language, and is different from φωνή, as applying selection, arrangement, adaptation. See my notes on Ignatius, Rom. Consequently, it always has reference to the subject matter. As enunciate of speech it conveys an account, the reasons of a thing, and from this last sense it even gets to signify the faculty of reason, regarded however as an energy, and not as a potentiality. The two extreme meanings of Λόγος then are speech and reason. See Plato’s Theaetetus.
What is the connection between reason and speech? Both are special characteristics of man. The connection is not only etymological but a fact, but this must be substantiated. How far would the one exist without the other is not a subject with which we are concerned. But what of applying Λόγος to the Divine Being? There are two prominent ideas corresponding to this connection: 1) Wisdom—active and substantive Providence; 2) Revelation. These are the primary ideas that the phrase ὁ Λόγος τὸυ Θεόυ would convey. But as the expression etymologically coincided with two ideas, so also in its historical progress we trace the union of two distinct lines of development of thought: 1) Old Testament Revelation, and 2) Platonic speculative Philosophy.
1) Old Testament Revelation. We have expressions such as ‘God spoke’ (see Luther’s comment in his Table Talk), and ‘the Word of the Lord came unto’ etc. See e.g. 1 Sam 3:1 and Amos 8:11. The expression in the Hebrew is generally יְהוָה דּבָר; In the LXX it is translated Λόγος κυρίῳ or ὁ Λόγος κυρίῳ. It is a Hebrew expression comprising of any revelation of God’s will and a man’s heart or understanding whether by direct speech or otherwise. Much more rarely (cf. 1 Sam 9:27; 1 Kngs 12:22; 1 Chron 17:3; comp. Prov 30:5; Is 40:8) we have ‘the Word of God’ (cf. Ps 33:6).
2) Platonic Philosophy. It refers to the creative demiurgic reason. The original plan or conception of the Creator, which was evolved in the creation and government of the world. Also it refers to the eternal archetype in the divine mind, of which the material world, both in its design and in its continuance, is a copy. These thoughts are to be traced back to Plato’s Timaeus. It is the λογισμός of the demiurge. The word Λόγος itself however is not prominent in the Timaeus, in fact one could ask does it occur at all, in this sense? Grote, Plato III, p. 285 reviews the usage in detail up through the patristic usage and later, even commenting on the extravagance of the Cambridge Platonists. Λόγος is that which impresses itself on matter. It includes the definitions, ideas of things—λόγοι.
It will be seen that in 1) the sense speech enunciation is prominent, in 2) the sense reason is prominent. These then correspond roughly to the two derived meanings of Λόγος as indicated above. The doctrine of the Logos as it had been developed at the time of the Christian era arose out of the union of these two influences. And its object was to bridge over the gulf between the Infinite and the finite, between the Creator and the created, between the Governor and the governed.
Alexandria was the local center where this union was cemented. Alexandria was the meeting point between East and West, the point of contact between Greek philosophy and Jewish religion. In a sense Alexander’s mind, his plan, was impressed upon Alexandria. At other points as well however the fusion would take place, more or less completely. And from Alexandria the idea would spread. Even if the use was not generated separately elsewhere, one must not expect to find it confined to Alexandria. On the one hand, Old Testament revelation declared that God was not only a creator but a very present ruler in the universe, and the religious instincts accorded with this belief. It represented his agency in the only way it could be represented to human faculties, under the form of human similitudes, as e.g. it spoke of the hand of God, of the eyes of God, and so forth, of God appearing to men and speaking to them.
On the other hand, Greek philosophy maintained (and intellectual thought was on its side) that God the Infinite Being was incomprehensible, and that in his Absolute Nature we could know nothing of Him, could hold no communion with Him. How were these two apparently contradictory ideas about the divine nature to be combined?
Moreover, it would be natural to expect that the relative proportions of the two elements would vary at different times and in different places and this is also confirmed by fact. In some places the Hebrew element predominated, in some the Greek. In Palestine, the question is heard more from the Old Testament side, and in Alexandria more from the side of Greek philosophy. In Palestine, the Word of God is the presence of Yahweh who reveals his will to his saints, the prophets; in Alexandria it is the informing design of the Creator which impresses itself upon and expresses itself in the universe, which sets the world in motion and keeps it so. I will now proceed to give illustrations of what has been said.
The Christian doctrine of the Λόγος was the synthesis of the two influences. A distinction must be made between Deity Absolute and Deity Manifest. The former is ὁ Θεός, the latter is ὁ Λόγος τὸυ Θεόυ. The adoption of these terms, rather than any other, to denote Deity Manifest, is due to the fact already explained that both on the side of the Old Testament revelation and on the side of Platonic philosophy the same word Λόγος had an established usage which was an approach to the meaning required. In Old Testament revelation, God spoke to the prophets, in the Platonic cosmogony, the word of God was the medium or instrument of creation. The doctrine of the Logos cannot be regarded as the solution of a difficulty, it is rather the recognition of the fact that both sides of the antithesis are true. The intellectual objection is valid, while the religious instinct still remains.
The doctrine of the Λόγος grew up between the close of the Old Testament era and the opening of the New. It was an important period of preparation, the value of which cannot be overrated. The seething of all the diverse elements, the fusion of opposites in the order of thoughts, it was when the ‘fullness of time’ (τὸ πλήρωμα τοῦ χρόνου—Gal. iv.4) had come, that ‘God sent into the world his Son, born of woman.’ The more one studies history, the more one feels the force and significance of St. Paul’s expression. Whether considered morally, or socially, or politically, or philosophically, or religiously, it was essentially the fullness of time. Even an unbeliever must allow, the Christian era has been the turning point of world history. This is not a matter of theory, but of fact. Whether we consider the actions of Rome, or the intellect of Greece, or the religious aspirations of Judaea, the expression ‘fullness of time’ is apt.